Joe Morgan's life as a writer comes full circle

Gwyneth J. Saunders

Wednesday

Apr 11, 2012 at 12:14 AM

Joe Richard Morgan knows irony.

Stories he wrote to show students how to write have been published.

"It's the irony of my life," Morgan said recently.

Morgan, 78, is the author of "Potato Branch: Sketches of Mountain Memories" and "Into the Chilling Water," both full of tales about growing up in and around his hometown of Leicester, N.C., "a valley of Welsh people," where the "holler" in which he lived would frequently resound with a neighbor's yodels.

"I first started writing in a loose way and with no intention of becoming a writer," Morgan said. "I was teaching basic skills. I told them you start the story in the middle of the action and then bring it full circle back to the middle. And if you want to get a line in that story, you put it in first."

Becoming an author was not his original plan, although more people now know of Morgan's talents because not only is he a writing instructor with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute but because he just won the annual SunSations writing contest with his entry "On the Road," published in the March issue of SunSations. The account is about helping a young hitchhiker find a way to a home. The incident took place on the return leg of a trip Morgan made to deal with matters after his mother's funeral in North Carolina.

"My mother only went to the fifth grade and had to quit to work," he said. "My dad got electricity because he said I would need light to study. First thing in the morning it was 'Joe, get in the field.' I'd wake up at 4:30 to go milk my assigned eight cows. Then I'd run the quarter mile home. Off would come my boots and clothes and I'd change while the bus waited for me. It waited for all of us because the driver knew we were all working in the fields.

"After school I heard the same thing. 'Joe, get in the field.' I loved it," he said. "It was the most happy childhood I could ever have. We had no inside plumbing when I joined the Marines so there was plenty to do to keep the place nice and neat."

Much of Morgan's life has been ironic. Morgan is a man who does not like weapons, but enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps when it appeared he might be drafted for the Korean War. After finishing recruit training at Parris Island, he remained there for several more months teaching, of all things, marksmanship.

"I never did get to Korea because I was such a good shot and they could see I knew how to handle my rifle," Morgan said. "I became a weapons instructor and rifle coach."

He transferred to the Marine Barracks Washington 8th & I and then to the Pentagon where he worked in the front office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Declining to re-enlist, Morgan applied to Wheaton College, Ill., at the recommendation of his Sunday School teacher.

"I didn't see any reason why they should accept me," he said, "but they did. I knew that I didn't know a lot about the English language. I'd been going to the Bible College at nights and reading when I could while working in the Pentagon. I'd become an avid reader."

Reading to teach

Morgan earned his bachelor of arts in English Literature, with minors in French, Social Studies, Education and Bible. Becoming a teacher, he spent the next 36 1/2 years on the west side of Chicago and loved it, he said, reluctantly retiring at 60.

As he taught literature and writing to his students, he used his own experiences to show them how to use the English language and tell a story. When he decided to seek a publisher, he contacted the New York firm that worked with James Herriot. On a trip to the United Kingdom, Morgan met the Yorkshire author whose popular series "All Creatures Great and Small" was a hit in print and a beloved BBC television series that was also seen on public television channels in the United States.

"They thought my stories were good but I would be better served by a publisher that specialized in regional literature," Morgan said. That led him to Bright Mountain Books in North Carolina and in 2007 Morgan had his two volumes of stories published.

Is he finished?

"When you start to write a memoir, oh, boy, 10,000 other stories jump in," Morgan said. "I may not get to it but we'll see."

The person responsible for Morgan joining the OLLI volunteer teaching staff is former director Dan Campbell who led the program for five years until just over a year ago.

"OLLI was conducting some promotional classes in Sun City to get people to come to classes. Joe and his wife had just moved here and they attended one of the classes," Campbell said. "After the class was over he came up to me and said 'Are you looking for instructors?' We are always looking, and I said 'Yes, very much so. Let's chat a little bit about your background.' Lo and behold, I found that he had a long career in education, he's a published author who has published two books and a number of short stories and he was interested in teaching a class in writing.

"We are always looking for instructors in that so we set it up and he was just marvelous, just wonderful. His classes are always filled," Campbell said. "I used to call them Joe Morgan's groupies. He could teach the phone book and they would show up for it."

Campbell said that over the course of time he got to know Morgan fairly well personally.

"He's just a marvelous man. He's got wonderful stories. He's a very caring individual. He's very sensitive, you can tell that in his stories. One thing that touched me very, very much was when I left they did a farewell party for me and Joe wrote a long piece that he read, kind of commemorating my five years experience there and it meant more to me than I can tell you. He put a lot of effort in it and it as very well written. It just shows you a lot about the individual."

Morgan is not through teaching. He's a regular on the staff of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of South Carolina Beaufort, passing on his writing experience to others aching to tell their stories. He tells his OLLI students who say "I want my children to know who I am" to focus.

"Don't tell anybody the story you're writing," he said. "Focus on what you're writing now. Just tell the story."

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